Saturday, August 07, 2004

CAT!

Yesterday, I finally tore the plastic wrapping on my IMS Basic Reference Material and started trying to study for the CAT. Note that I said 'trying'. A few minutes into the Arithmetic and Algebra module, I realised that the CAT didn't require any intelligence whatsoever to crack. All the questions had formulae you could apply in order to get the correct answer. There was no creative thinking involved whatsoever. So, for anybody who cares, here's what I think CAT questions should really be like...

(Please note that these are all actual questions taken from my book and twisted around conveniently in order to make my point.)

If 15 men working for 15 hours a day can do a piece of work in 24 days and 17 women working for 12 hours a day can do the same piece of work in 29 days, then how many days will it take 16 eunuchs working at 13 hours a day to complete the work?

In the Annual General Body meeting of the Rotary Club, a chairman is to be selected for which A and B are the only candidates. They each introduced themselves and a round of election was held. After this, each of them gave another speech on their policy and workplan for the coming year after which another round of election was held. The number of votes not cast for A increased by 25% in the second round over those not cast for him in the first and because of this negative swing, A lost the second round to B by twice as many votes as that by which he had won in the first round. Calculate, upto two decimal places, just how jobless the Rotary Club is.

The population of rats in a locality X increases by 20% in one year. Observing this, the pest control committee decided to use a special kind of pesticide 'ABC'* which effectively kills 160 rats in 3 months. If the intitial population of rats was 4800, why didn't the committe just call the Pied Piper?

I have a certain number of marbles to divide equally among 18 boys. If I divide them in such a way that each boy gets a number of marbles that is equal to his father's age after the mother's age has been deducted from it, then how certain is it that I have lost my marbles?

A man is 6 times as old as his son. 2 years hence, he will be 5 times as old as his son. In inches, exactly how wide is the generation gap between them?

A man buys two horses for Rs.86. By selling one for three-quarters of its cost price, and the other for four-thirds of its cost price, he makes a profit of Rs.3 on the whole transaction. Just how lame are these horses?

On an average, my income for 15 days was Rs.7, the avarage for the first 5 days was Rs.6 and the average for the last 9 days was Rs.8. Do you think I would do better if I quit and went to work as a knife-thrower's assistant?

69 dogs escaped from the pound. Out of these, 27 were Alsatians, 17 Daschunds and 25 Dobermans. A daschund can crawl 5 metres in 1 minute while an Alsatian can run 10 metres in the same time. However, the Doberman is the fastest as it can travel 20 metres in the same 1 minute. If all 69 dogs escaped from the front gate, then who let the dogs out?

Hari has a piece of cake 60 cm long. He first gives Raja half of it. He then gives Gopal 1/4th of what is left. After giving a piece to Sahil, he is left with 1/10th of the original. How high are Hari's chances of getting into Mensa?

A truck was being driven in a fog at a speed of 100 km/hr. A man was walking at 3km/hr in the opposite direction. After 4 minutes, the truck hit the man and killed him instaneously. After the incident, the truck was driven through the fog at a speed of 120 km/hr. Did anybody get the number of that truck?

Akash has with him a total of 29 rupees in 5 rupee and 2-rupee denominations. The number of 5-rupee notes is one half of one less than the number of 2-rupee notes. exactly how low are Akash's chances of landing a really hot girlfriend?Three people A, B and C weigh themselves in a particular order. First A, B, C weigh themselves individually and then AB, BC, CA and ABC together respectively. The recorded weight for the last measure is 180 kgs. Are A, B and C members of the Rotary Club?

Hope you did well on that test! Leave your answers in the comments section. I will evaluate them and put up your All-India ranking right here as soon as I can. Cheers till then!

15 Comments:

Akash is a eunuch rotary club member who obviously cannot complete any work(rotarian) and was on the committee which did not think of calling pied piper because the members thought buying pied piper a flute would be costlier than hiring him (they spend money for useless things and leave out the more productive stuff). He was the guy killed by the truck and none of his mates noted the number because they were busy eating. Akash is dead and obviously cannot get a hot girlfriend. The 29 rupee thing...Akash actually became a rotarian and all that but he wasted so much money in betting on lame horses that he was left with only that much and mind you the horses were rendered lame when vinod the great was playing with marbles along with his friends hari and bahadog (the dog watchman who let them out)...hari will not get into mensa because if he were to be eligible, he should have eaten the whole piece of cake himself(vinod certainly would have)...hari is bahadog's son and the generation gap is not more than 1 inch because they have a common friend in vinod and they both still steal marbles (you've lost your marbles dude). Now, A,B and C are Vinod, Hari & Bahadog respectively...'A', because he can eat well and will probably make a lot of money just by quizzing will be a rotarian as soon as he's 30. 'B', because of his stealing skills will make it but bahadog won't because he's now infamous due to the dog escape event. And don't become a knife thrower's assistant because then he'll lose all his knives !!!

Wow, so many attempts... that too, when you were drunk. And moroever, your answers were so creative and you proved the global-interconnectedness of the world by linking all your answers. IIM beckons...

hey, i'm the most sedate and peaceful person you'll ever find..and i am not a eunuch! but what u've written drives me mad. WTF is the idea of adding humor (u and a few side-kick SOBs who've posted comments have the temerity to assume its humorous) tyur blog at the cost of eunuchs?? cant u be a wee bit considerate?? cant u realize how they'd feel (they may not be sophisticate enough to read these)..these small liberties tht u presume by making them the butt of ur f****** so called jokes, has resulted in and would further major discrimination. In what way are eunuchs responsible for what they are going through and for what they are?? you, a member of orkut (damn the person who invited u), a quizwhiz, an engg stud, fuck...supp to be among the elite and brilliant few...its very uncharacteristic and shameful. frm what i think u'd be like, u'll probably not give a damn to this comment other than fuming and farting over it!! go to hell

Hey Anon, I completely agree with you and I sincerely hope you read this. I feel that way too and the question was just my way of pointing out that eunuchs are neglected in this world. I mean, everybody bothers about men and women but nobody gives a damn how eunuchs feel. So, I say why shouldn't there be a question on them in the CAT?

hey,not as peaceful as i would've preferred...yeah..a few more instances of disagreement.. in the question abt 69 dogs, why not bitches?? why doesnt CAT give equal representation for women?? (am not a woman too)and ofcourse stupid armstrong didnt do it, there were no lamp-posts on moon when he'd been there!!urs anon